SAN FRANCISCO - The 2008 GAYVN Summit got started Friday with three informative seminars and two sizzling parties. The first panel, moderated by Rand Pate of Epoch, took to the stage at 11 a.m. to discuss how best to market a brand. Panelists were Steven Scarborough of Hot House Entertainment, Rob Novinger of Channel 1, Erik Schut of TLA Entertainment Group and Tim Valenti of NakedSword-AEBN.
Scarborough pointed out that it's hard to be everything to everyone, but noted that his company has gone to pains to do brand analysis, checking out the strengths of chief competitors to discover they at Hot House are and also who their customers are.
Valenti said that the consistency with you a company brands is hugely important, adding, "The face of your brand out there needs to be consistent, speaking for you, creating a good impression. Use yourself."
Scarborough added, "Most successful companies have been led by strong personalities. Get out there, do interesting press releases, and blog. Anybody can get into this business if they have will and a little bit of talent."
On the topic of mass marketing vs. target marketing, Scarborough said, "It depends what you're trying to do. If you take out an ad in a magazine in an attempt to brand, don't expect immediate monetary returns. You have to commit to branding."
Novinger pointed out that the ad campaign for his studio's Link: The Evolution worked better than they could have expected, saying, "We coordinated it with a book, posters, and it sold really really well. We're very pleased with it."
Schut pointed out that his company's most effective campaign currently is a buy-one-get-one-free: The one we've seen taking off and exploding right now is a buy two DVDs and get third free.
Scarborough said Hot House's most effective campaign was for its Club Inferno Dungeon, which used the slogan "Filthy never looked so good." He said that it crossed over to the mainstream to such a degree that maids at a Chicago hotel was wearing T-shirts with the slogan on them.
Valenti said that NakedSword had been successful because of "the way we positioned ourselves against all the other VOD companies. We aligned with the best production, the best quality, and went one step further - we're not just VOD. We have our own creative content that we create. It's like combining HBO, CBS, Logo, and all the greatest porn in the world."
Scarborough also pointed out that utilizing YouTube had been very successful for his company, but warned, "You have to be very careful, because you'll get tagged in a second. But we can put up soft core things and really get some good traffic from that."
Schut also suggested the importance of doing a customer service survey saying that he and his company had not done one for years and that it was a huge mistake: "We thought, Well, we know our customers.... But ask them. It's no-brainer stuff. You have to listen to the people you're trying to attract."
The second seminar was moderated by MJ McMahon, the publisher of AVN Online. He led panelists Jack Shamama of NakedSword, Gary Jackson of CCBill, Tony Rios Channel 1 and Albert Silvercash of Silvercash through maximizing content topics.
In terms of making the transition from DVD to the web, Jackson said one of the most important things to do is to know your customer base, who they are and what they want, adding it was just as important to know your content.
Albert stressed the value of relationships, and Rios said that one of the best ways to make your content work for you is to throw things against a wall and see what sticks. Trial and error.
Jackson pointed out that online you can package content in a plethora of ways to suit different people, whereas a DVD is simply a DVD.
Shamama suggested sending out clips in an embedded player to promote your own content instead of utilizing tube sites.
When asked about transitioning not to the web but from the web to DVD, Albert said that was more challenging, because the DVD market is oversaturated.
Rios asserted that if you don't know much about transitioning to DVD, it was vital to find a good partner, someone you can trust who is on the same page in terms of what is necessary.
McMahon then queried whether the DVD market was still viable, and Rios said that though the industry is moving more toward online he found that DVDs were still a fair portion of his company's profits.
Albert asserted that he thinks there will be a need for DVDs for at least the next five years, but also cautioned that it was important to keep in mind that a major disadvantage of the DVD market is that it's not 24/7 and that with brick-and-mortar stores, you also have to fight for shelf space whereas reale state on the Internet is essentially endless and reminded attendees to not forget about the Middel East market, saying, "There are tons of hits from the Middle East, but people are closeted. So they turn to the Internet."
Shamama responded that he didn't think the DVD industry had only five years left and brought up how the mainstream film industry feared that the advent of television would mean the end of the silver screen, but it wasn't. He said, "There has been a decline in DVD sales in the last few years, but I look at it more like people are adjusting to the changes in how people digest porn. The two will reach equilibrium."
The third and final seminar was hosted by Chi Chi LaRue and included performers Diesel Washington and Steve Cruz, company owners and performers Jason Ridge and Michael Lucas, agent Howard Marr, and studio owner Chris Ward.
Washington kicked things off by saying he'd like to see more diversity in mainstream porn, adding that he sometimes feels like the only black actor and now that there are lines of films like Latino Fan Club but those tend to fetishize different ethnicities.
Lucas contended that the problem is that black models are not easy to find generally due to the fact that the African-American community is more homphobic than other communities.
Washington countered that by claiming that there are blacks trying to get into the industry but "they get pushed into being a ‘thug' or have to wear a do rag and a gold chain. If most companies see it's 2008 they'll see that blacks can be cast as lawyers."
Ward pointed out that his studio, Raging Stallion, is generally inclusive and includes one or two African-American men in each film.
Marr said that he gets approximately 100 applications from aspiring models every week, including blacks and Latins, and he submits them to studios but, oddly enough, he has never been instrumental in casting a black mode.
When LaRue led the conversation toward the pros and cons of having contract players, Ward said, "We have a huge level of production, so we need to have contract players. The price of models, however, is going through the roof. Production expense and model fees have gone up. It used to be $1,000. Now it's twice or three times that."
Marr said, "The payback on the Internet is higher than DVDs so they can pay more."
Ridge said, "There are no residuals to the models, so I think it's fair to give them a comparable pay."
Cruz posited, "It's a lot easier navigating this business as a contract player than it is as an independent."
Lucas then pointed out, "There are two problems in the industry. Some companies are too greedy signing too many models. Then they can't keep promises they've made to the models. Two models (Carlo Masi and Adam Champ) sent a press release to everyone in the industry about leaving COLT after the studio spent so much time and $ on promoting them." And he then suggested that the industry not hire those models.
"So we should dictate whom people should hire?" Marr wondered.
"Yes," Lucas replied. "Don't hire Carlo, don't hire Brent Corrigan. He faked his ID and endangered the freedom of the studio owner."
This elicited a round of applause from the seminar attendees.
Following the seminars, summit attendees were treated to a party sponsored by Falcon Personals powered by Adult Friend Finder and DHD Media in the W Hotel. The crème de la crème of the gay adult industry was in attendance, including Matthew Rush and Gino Colbert.
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